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Filmmaker Rich Wieske of Royal Oak is into bees.
About 16 years ago, he started making honey as a hobby, which eventually grew into a business, Green Toe Gardens, which he operates with co-owner and wife Joan Mandell. Today, they have roughly 100 beehives in Metro Detroit, many of which are in urban farms in Detroit. Besides honey, they make products like candles out of beeswax.
Wieske, who, over the years has made local documentaries and filmed commercials, thinks there's great health benefits to honey, and bees as well. He uses bee stingers to relieve his arthritic pain. He sells his product at Eastern Market and Royal Oak's Farmers Market on the weekends and online.
Asked if he's afraid of bees, he says: "I'm more afraid of humans."
His wife, Mandell, says the business entails far more than selling honey. She says they get an opportunity to talk about the environment, climate change and bees with people who stop by their booths.
"It's such an amazing community experience," she says.
Mandell and Wieske also teach about beekeeping and producing honey.
"The educational thing is really an important part of what we do," she says.
Allan Lengel of Deadline Detroit met up with Wieske on a busy Saturday at Eastern Market to chat about the bee and honey business. (See the video above).
Clarification: In the video, Rich Wieske talks about the life span of a bee and says that queen bees can live up to five years, but worker bees may only live for six. He meant to say six weeks.
